1. Technical Field
The present invention relates generally to nanotube films, layers, and fabrics and methods of making same and, more specifically to carbon nanotube films, layers, and fabrics and methods of making same so that they form or may be made to form patterned ribbons, elements and articles of various shapes and characteristics.
2. Discussion of Related Art
Wire crossbar memory (MWCM) has been proposed. (See U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,128,214; 6,159,620; and 6,198,655.) These memory proposals envision molecules as bi-stable switches. Two wires (either a metal or semiconducting type) have a layer of molecules or molecule compounds sandwiched in between. Chemical assembly and electrochemical oxidation or reduction are used to generate an “on” or “off” state. This form of memory requires highly specialized wire junctions and may not retain non-volatility owing to the inherent instability found in redox processes.
More recently, memory devices have been proposed which use nanoscopic wires, such as single-walled carbon nanotubes, to form crossbar junctions to serve as memory cells. (See WO 01/03208, Nanoscopic Wire-Based Devices, Arrays, and Methods of Their Manufacture; and Thomas Rueckes et al., “Carbon Nanotube-Based Nonvolatile Random Access Memory for Molecular Computing,” Science, vol. 289, pp. 94-97, 7 Jul. 2000.) Hereinafter these devices are called nanotube wire crossbar memories (NTWCMs). Under these proposals, individual single-walled nanotube wires suspended over other wires define memory cells. Electrical signals are written to one or both wires to cause them to physically attract or repel relative to one another. Each physical state (i.e., attracted or repelled wires) corresponds to an electrical state. Repelled wires are an open circuit junction. Attracted wires are a closed state forming a rectified junction. When electrical power is removed from the junction, the wires retain their physical (and thus electrical) state thereby forming a non-volatile memory cell.
The NTWCM proposals rely on directed growth or chemical self-assembly techniques to grow the individual nanotubes needed for the memory cells. These techniques are now believed to be difficult to employ at commercial scales using modern technology. Moreover, they may contain inherent limitations such as the length of the nanotubes that may be grown reliably using these techniques, and it may difficult to control the statistical variance of geometries of nanotube wires so grown. Improved memory cell designs are thus desired.
The reliable fabrication of electrically conductive, ultra-thin metallic layers and electrodes in the sub-10 nm regime is problematic. (See e.g., S. Wolf, Silicon Processing for the VLSI era; Volume 2—Process Integration, Lattice Press, Sunset Beach, 1990.) Metal films in this size regime are usually non-continuous and not conductive over macroscopic distances. Furthermore, these sub-10 nm films are prone to thermal damage by electrical current, making them unsuitable for applications such as electrical interconnects in semiconductor devices. Thermal damage of thin metal interconnects caused by their low heat conductivities is one of the main factors inhibiting dramatic miniaturization and performance improvements of highly integrated semiconductor devices.
Conventional interconnect technologies have a tendency to suffer from thermal damage and metal diffusion eroding the performance of the semiconductor devices especially from degradation of the electrical properties. These effects become even more pronounced with size reduction in current generation 0.18 um and 0.13 um structures, e.g. by metal diffusion through ultra-thin gate oxide layers.
There is therefore a need in the art for conductive elements that may operate well in contexts having high current densities or in extreme thermal conditions. This includes circuit contexts with very small feature sizes but includes other high current density, extreme thermal environment contexts as well. There is also a need for conductive elements that will be less likely to diffuse undesirable amounts of contaminants into other circuit elements.